The Reaper's Toll
by Blu3bird24
Summary: Set after 'Crooked Kingdom', my own idea of the story continuation. (C) L. Bardugo 'Six of Crows' & Characters
1. Chapter 1 (Matthias)

**\- Matthias -**

He knew this place, he felt it tugging him in like a hug from an old friend. The Great White Wolf led him further into this place that was his home. His village where he had grown as a boy nestled in the green glen, the sound of the cold brook chasing ice and black rock into the river beyond. Everything was as he remembered, the coloured houses, the town market, even the carvings of the boys names in the ash tree marking their coming of age. This was Trosk, where his father had taught him to splinter wood, and hunt the grouse in spring. Where his Mama cooked venison stew that would last them a week, and bread so warm it melted the butter she and the others had churned that day.

He could here them calling to him, they were waving, welcoming him.

But he felt a twinge - a tug inside him that would not relent. He glanced to his side as if expecting to catch a specter but only the deep moat and green glads rose beside him crystallized in a haze of snow. Sucking in a deep breath he returned his vision to his family.

"Matthias!"

He knew that voice, his old friend Halden. The boy bounded up to him as fresh as new grass, his light eyes sparkling with another life as if Djel had entwined with him and shone in him now.

"Matthias you came!" he laughed - he was not changed since the last Matthias had seen him.

When was the last he had seen him?

Halden seemed to watch him, a peaceful understanding in him that seemed to ease Matthias mind. The Wolf pulled free of Matthias' fingers watching him with black eyes. Licking his lips he turned slowly taking everything in...nothing was changed yet he felt it should be.

Something was missing, he couldn't quite grasp what.

"Come, you owe me a drink. I told you I could out last you! Don't be a skimp."

"I owe what?" he voice was smooth though he felt rough.

"You've forgotten? Remember you challenged me to out last you in the Ice Grip - you chickened out and I won!"

Helvar glanced over his shoulder again at the wolf, its eyes were dark but rippled with something else...something otherworldly. The Ice Grip? That was the spring where the brook took its life from. It was a freezing hole - that was right...he'd challenged Halden to best him. He had been trying to show off to Lainie the town beauty. It was game, who could stand in the neck deep water the longest, he hadn't been able to manage more than twenty-minutes. He should have never challenged Halden, he had always been the strongest of them.

Halden was laughing again he took Matthias shoulder - something ruptured in his stomach. Pain. White hot - the smell of death clung to him. Gasping Helvar lurched from Halden's grasp. His friend clutched his hand as if the contact had burnt him.

"What was that!" Matthias gasped trying to right himself.

This wasn't right. The White Wolf growled low eyeing him with trepidation.

Halden glanced to the wolf straightening he tried to regain his presence.

"It's alright Matthias, you're home. This is home," licking his lips he nodded towards the town, "come, your Father waits for you."

Everyone was how he remembered, even his baby sister gargled exactly as she had. Matthias couldn't reason why it felt they never stopped being this way. He couldn't gather the memory, only the feeling that it had been taken away. That this piece of him had been hacked from his heart by a hot blade once. But why? What had happened? The Wolf had not left the village, he circled near the edge of the town watching Helvar as if waiting for something more. It seemed to make everyone nervous, but when he asked they simply turned his question away.

"Eat, you are a growing boy," his mother shoved his third plate of stew before him. But he could eat no more. Grinning he stood once again and hugged his mother smelling her, feeling the scratch of her knitted shawl against his smooth jaw.

"I don't know why...but I...I don't want this end," he said again touching the wood framework trying to take in the feel as if it would be swept from him.

"It won't end son," his father leaned against the door frame watching him, his sharp blue eyes as bright a Halden's had. Jorge Helvar was as tall as he was - he had embraced Matthias and eyed him in pride at the man he had become.

He was dressed in the greys of the Druskelle, had he become an elite witchhunter? But why? Why would he leave his father and their lumber to go hunting the Grisha? He had not lingered on the thought and even now it seemed he could not gather reasoning to pursue it more deeply. It simply hung there as an almost question clinging to him like snowflakes, present but not felt.

"Hey Helvar, look who it is," Halden grinned jerking his chin to the window that overlooked the rough dirt road. A girl - a beauty with dark hair knocked tentatively on their door swaying back and forth on her feet. Compelled by an unknown reason Matthias excused himself - he knew her, she was Lainie. He had a feeling in him that was almost warm yet not quite sure. As he opened the door he felt a lurch of sadness as if he had expected someone else.

"Matthais, I heard you had come home. I wanted to come see you and your uniform...you're very...handsome," the girl blushed daring to look at him with the sweet morning dew face he was sure he should have wanted shyly grinning at him for the rest of his days. But he didn't. The pain throbbed in his stomach, his heart clenched and he felt the cold. A cold of water...of ocean...

 _Swim you great lug!_

"Nina," he gasped the word the pain ripping through his abdomen, he grasped the wound blood polluting his clean uniform. Lainie jumped aside crying out as his family rushed to him.

"Nina," he coughed, seawater dribbling from his mouth. Images so real, so fervent burnt into his mind. The Grisha, the Heartrender he had captured, her curves, her long dark hair and the way her Grisha red uniform clung to her. As soon as they were there the images vanished. Wolves howled from the forest - Halden and Jorge dragged Matthias inside as the village scrambled to their own homes.

"What do we do?" he heard Halden whisper, "what is happening?"

"I don't know - but nobody leaves tonight," turning back to his son, Jorge tentatively took his shoulder, "Matthias perhaps you should lie down, we'll call you prayer soon."

Nodding Matthias prepared to heave his injured body from the floor. But the pain had gone and the blood that had slicked his grey uniform had vanished without a stain. Taking a deep breath he rose finding his way easily to where his cot had been. The room was wood, the smell of pine and cedar...of rose perfume, of honey and sweet cinnamon. He felt cold...his limbs like lead. He felt almost wet yet he was dry. Turning to his bed he tried to focus on something to clam his heart. It was aching, pounding almost out of him. The green woolen spread laid rumpled as he had left it that morning...

That morning...

It was green like her eyes.

He gasped, the pain was in his chest. He'd left her. She needed him. _Nina_. The wolves were closing in - the savage snarls turned towards something beyond their village. He could hear frantic voices as his father and mother raced towards his room.

"Matthias!"

"Son are you alright?"

Blood stained his hands, his mouth full of the taste of salt. And smoke...he could smell it. Bright flashes of red-wood hair and green eyes...and fire.

"Inferina!"

Suddenly he felt himself lurched against the wall...no...no this was a tree trunk the bark rough. He'd been in the woods. Fire...his village it was on fire. He had to run. His legs couldn't pump hard enough...no no!

He could hear them screaming, the visions split his skull and wrenched at his mind.

Halden - Halden was nothing but a black husk knelt before the Infernia squad as they rendered his home to ash...his father, his mother...his baby sister...

He tried to scream the pain too much. His legs gave way - they were cold, dead they couldn't save him.

 _Nina! Nina_! He tried to drag himself the fire raged ahead but the woods were endless. When suddenly there were no woods.

He was on ice sheet in the north. It was freezing but a warm hand was on his chest pumping his blood bringing life back into him.

" _Not yet Fjerdan_ ," she whispered her voice soft as a spring brook.

" _Not yet. You have work to do._ "

Blood pumped in him he felt the icy pain of the ocean clinging to him. But it was real. So very real.

The White Wolf was before him, its eyes sparkling.

" _You are not meant for your homelands yet Matthais Helvar. We have work to do."_

The wolf snarled, its jaws launching for him.

Matthias gasped lurching forward clutching at his throat where the White Wolf's teeth had clamped in a killer hold. He breathed hard his body screaming in protest, his stomach a searing pain that he grabbed feeling the fresh bought of blood mix with the staled lifeblood that had left him in Ketterdam.

Wait...

Helvar couldn't see, his vision a blur of colours. He felt unstable or was that the floor. The sea was rank here, stale salt, pickles and rot clung to his lungs. He coughed tasting the sea and death.

"Where am I?" he rasped his throat dry, "Why am I here..."

 _I should be dead_.

"You're on a cargo vessel Fjerdan, off the coast of Ravka. Don't worry - we'll make land soon."

The voice was unfamiliar, a rasp of steel against stone, sharp and cold. He felt a warm hand on his chest the prickle of a healer sealing a gaping hole in him he hadn't noticed was there.

"What have you done to me!" he snarled his vision prickling back.

"I saved you. I gave you another chance - your job is not done yet," the voice owned the hand as it whistled calling something to it.

Helvar could hear the pad of paws train towards him. He tried to swallow his mouth too dry, his throat too raw. A wolf came into his vision slowly, its grey fur sleek, the dark patterns from its eyes eerily familiar.

"Trassel?"

The wolf gazed at him unfazed those dark eyes holding his soul. It was his old wolf...but it couldn't be.

"You're dead."

"Not quite - just like you, he had another life."

The voice become more a shape, than an outline as the world slowly pieced together. Slowly the sheen of red Grisha uniform tied up in dark greys came into focus. The man gazed at him with a eerie smile, he was tall, his greyish skin pulled taunt on his bones, his eyes a clear gold. He was Ravkan, a Grisha of the Corporalki that was for certain. Yet he wasn't.

"Who are you?" demanded Helvar trying to rise.

"Don't bother, I haven't put the blood back in your legs just yet," the man smirked cleaning his healers tools, "I suppose I should tell you something of myself. As I know quite a bit about you."

Crouching before him the man extended his skeletal hands, the pale skin had been tattooed to look like bones, "Alystar. But they all call me the Reaper now. I collect souls and stitch them back in their bodies. You were dead Helvar but I am your salvation."

Matthias chanced a glance to his legs that refused to respond, his own skin pale as milk, he felt everything...but his heart. Clutching at his chest he felt a faint scar. Aystar grinned,

"Oh, don't worry it's safe."

"What have you done to me! Druskel!"

"Saved you, I have given you another chance - I have made you again, and you will work off the debt," rising Alystar returned to his rough table of instruments, "I have been raising back those wronged in the world. You're quite famous helping free that Shu infidel from your own kind. You were a Druskelle once weren't you?"

Matthias wasn't following, Trassel had lain by his side as if the sea had not swept him to the icy depths years ago. He was warm and alive, his heart beat inside him steady and strong. But Matthias was meant to be dead. He was shot...he felt the scar where the bullet had pulled apart his life.

"You're going to help me Helvar, I need to find my brothers, my sisters that were taken from me. And you're going to help me hunt them down, all of them."

Turning around the man dropped a strange variant of his old Druskelle uniform on his lap.

"Welcome to the New Order, Matthias Helvar."


	2. Chapter 2 (Wylan)

**\- Wylan -**

This was insanity. What respectable Mercher trudged through the evening muck of Ketterdam's neighbourhood of sin? The Barrel was alive tonight, music and hedonism. Powdered women of the night passed him by with smiles that only worked on the drunk and witless. Wylan swallowed his revulsion as a pair of well-rounded women pressed towards him, their tawdry dresses and furs stained with the dirt of the streets.

"You look like you could use a good time," the larger of the two ran her tongue across her yellow-ish teeth, "The _Prince's Bounty_ has fair ladies for a fair drink like you."

"No thank you Madam," Wylan pulled himself free of her gloved claws touching his hat in desperate attempt to ward off any hard feelings. But the endeavour was pointless as her partner spat profanity at his quickening stride. Taking a deep breath he adjusted his mask as was custom for men of his position. The _Komedie Brute_ hid his true identity from more than just shame. He may not have made much of a name in the dank streets of the Barrel during his brief contract with the Dregs. But all knew him as one of Kaz Brekker's old crew - and that alone made him a tantalising target to the right minded.

He slipped down the alley he knew would have him before the Crow Club. The building was alive with the same vibrant allure of golden dreams and fair prospects. The Dregs were in full tonight, the muscle at the doors nodded to him without a slightest inclination of recognition. _Good, my disguise is working_.

Licking his lips he trailed about the bright rooms, the dealers calling stakes, the waitresses supplying the already well-liquoured patrons, cigar smoke hazing reality and fantasy in the colours of the gambling den. Wylan didn't understand why he was so wired tonight, why the laughter and cheers set him on edge. Why he couldn't keep his breath shallow of the stench. Why he felt as if at any moment he would fall through a trap door and never rise again.

His eyes roved over the card tables seeking that familiar profile he thought had slunk back into old habits. It was why Wylan was here and not at home, warm and watching his mother paint as he tinkered with gadget models. The Van Eck trade had been a stable prosperity, but times were changing and so he had taken to following the latest in innovations churning from Shu and Ravka - steam powered ships. The idea was in its infancy, so much had to be modified from the very wood the ships had been wrought. Wylan had wrapped himself in the plans of late - it wasn't until tonight that his friend's reoccurring absence had set off warning alarms.

Jesper had been fidgety, bored even. There was a hunger that flared in his friend's eyes that reminded Wylan of the impossible boy's former life. One of reckless abandonment, guns and cards. He had been fingering a deck for several weeks now, playing an easy game of craps with Wylan's mother Marya. How he'd got his hands on a deck Wylan was still to understand. The mansion had been deliberately purged of anything that would tempt Jesper's taste for that old high. Like a drug, Jesper had to be sapped slowly of the taste, a task Wylan had underestimated ruefully. He had lost track of his friend's whereabouts, he had slipped from the house without a note, slipping back in the early morning ruffled and suspicious. Now, Wylan had to find him. He'd been gone for three days with a messenger arriving that morning to tell him not to worry and that he'd be back soon.

"Ya gonna have a game or ghost around like a spy?" gruffed a Dreg looking Wylan up and down with a set grimace of distrust.

Wylan huffed a nervous apology making sure steps to the bar shaking the man's suspicion from him. Jesper wasn't here - well that was hardly surprising. Kaz had made a pact to keep the man from any of his establishments - and Jesper was hardly an inconspicuous creature. Ordering something dark, Wylan glanced about noting that the rough Dreg was keeping tab on him. Sighing he turned back to his drink, there had to be over a dozen gambling dens he knew of, and quite a few more that he didn't. And what about the floating games that popped up even in the Lid. There was no shortage of temptation that could lead the tainted man astray.

Wylan's gaze caught sight of a group of Dregs skirting the perimeter of the gambling floor, a familiar figure heading them with his hitched gait the result of a bad leg. The crow cane head a dull silver in the smoky hall.

Kaz Brekker was in. But not for long it seemed as he paused by his gambling house manager. A quick word and the small group of five were out the premise without a backwards glance. Draining the glass of the wretched liquor Wylan trailed them taking a wide berth of the bouncer. In the cold once more Wylan ditched behind an alley pulling his disguise over his head - it was too conspicous and he needed Kaz to recognise him...even if he wasn't pleased to know him for it.

Following the cane was easy until the sound disappeared and the night engulfed the Barrel's warm lights for the cold shadows stilted against the damp wet buildings of the lower end of Ketterdam. The Harbour clung stale in the air, the stirrings of the autumn storms pressing a thick chill against his exposed skin. Where was he? He couldn't class the streets, all the same he followed the narrow laneway keeping his ears trained for the tell-tale cane or at least a break of sound in the unusual silence. Finally, a gasp, voices splinttered the night the sound of a beating none-the-less. Crouching low Wylan pressed himself into a set of water barrels squinting into the night where the voices floated from.

"I told ya, they never tell me nothing!"

"We both know that's far from true. Perhaps you need Lock here to soften you up a bit more," Kaz's gravel tone was almost amused as his unfortunate victim squeaked a protest that found the sympathy of Lock's hard fist. After another round of ' _softening_ ' Kaz repeated his demand,

"Now, Hooper was it? I'm not going to ask again. Where is that canal rat leader of yours - Alfy - and where have you smuggled my scrub?"

"Ain't smuggled nothing Mister Brekker, you gotta believe me. I ain't stupid enough to hold score with you."

"I'm starting to think you believe me a patient man Hooper," Kaz growled. A yelp of pain seared the night and Wylan flinched - Dirtyhands was out tonight...was spying on him a smart move?

"Fifth Harbour..." the man called Hooper wailed, "Alfy has a game on tonight...on his boat...All Bets, please, please I know nothing else!"

"I'm sure that's about as true as those worthless brass rings on your fingers Hooper," Kaz seemed satisfied nonetheless, "Lock, take our new _friend_ to the warehouse. See if you can't get something more credible out of his gutter mouth."

"Aye Boss," Lock gruffed as the man's pleads were lost to a wad of cloth.

"Roeder, Anika looks like you have some sniffing to do around Fifth Harbour," Kaz ordered his cane taking pace towards Wylan's hide. Swallowing the boy shrunk into the shadows as best he could. Kaz's grunts agreeing, disappearing the opposite direction. The cane came to a stop behind Wylan's water drum.

"I'm not fond of spies lurking in the dark, and you one of the worst I've seen Mister Van Eck," the cane knocked against the drum forcing a shame faced Wylan to gather himself to his feet. Kaz Brekker's cold dark eyes assessed him with indifference.

"...Hullo Kaz...sorry," he spoke awkwardly feeling all the more a child under the man's gaze.

The Barrel Boss waited with a raised brow, Rotty behind him smirking at the pathetic shuffle the boy was dancing. Heaving a sigh Wylan met the man's eyes, "I need your help. I think Jesper's in trouble."


End file.
